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When I was in the 4th grade, I started going to my grandparent’s house before school every morning so my Mom could get to work on time. During this time, my relationship with my grandparents grew more than it ever had. Every morning, My grandparents and I would sit at the kitchen table with a pot of coffee and talk about life. The topics ranged from the difference in the world between their childhoods and mine, sports teams, politics, music, and just about everything else. I learned about things about my grandparents that I would never have known otherwise: the values they hold closest, the experiences that shaped them the most, and the way they see the world. Complex, meaningful discussions that have now shaped me as a man, yet all these conversations sprouted from a few cups of coffee around a dining room table.
Now, while I do not necessarily think that allowing an 11-year-old to start drinking cups of coffee every morning (still haven’t shaken the caffeine addiction ever since) is a great idea, I learned a lot of great lessons from those mornings at my grandparent’s house that have stuck with me ever since. As I got older, I took these coffee pot conversations and had them with teachers, friends’ parents, people at church, and even just random strangers at restaurants. I have found very few scenarios that create conversations quite like a couple cups of coffee, and since the pandemic started, those cups of coffee just don’t come around like they used to. You can’t call up your grandparents for coffee, you can’t just go see folks at church, and you certainly can’t just talk to strangers at restaurants anymore.
The worst part of all this is that there are many coffee-cup conversations that simply won’t ever get to happen again. One of my grandfathers passed away back in May, and I have plenty of friends who are in similar situations along with hundreds of thousands of families across the country. There is no clear sign as to when the pandemic will end, and more people are going to die from this disease. I just hope I eventually will get to have some coffee-cup conversations again. I miss old people.
Bryson Sebastian is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2024. He is studying political science and business at the University of Louisville.